Multicultural and Plural Societies The concept of a multicultural society joiiN nrx Most researchers in the field of ethnic relations feel that they should perform more than a technical role, gathering facts which might be useful to government in the pursuit of undisclosed policy objectives. If the ends of such policies are subject to criticism, however, some way has to be found of distinguishing the value standards used by researchers from those of political partisans. VALUE ORIENTATIONS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE These problems were discussed in 1939 by the great Swedish social scientist Gunnar Myrdal when he was invited to make a definitive study of race relations in the United States (Myrdal 1944). The fundamental principles governing his research were as follows: 1 Social science always involves something more than the mere description of facts. 2 It claims not merely that such-and-such is the case but that it is necessarily the case. That is to say, it not merely describes but explains. 3 The concept of something being necessarily the case, however, has a special meaning in sociology. What is necessary from the point of view of one value standpoint is not necessary from another. What is necessary from the point of view of one interest is not necessary from the point of view of another. • c • 1 r-irii , ,, , ,, 206 Jofih Rex preferable to another. All it can do and what it certainly should do is to make its value standpoint or the state of affairs which it is taking as desirable, clear and explicit. In studying American race relations, Myrdal chose to ask the question, 'what structures, institutions and policies are necessary to achieve the ends set out in the American constitution, as interpreted?' The key to any honest approach to policy-oriented research is to be found in Myrdaľs fourth principle. If asked what conditions are necessary for the successful implementation of policy, the researcher should ask for a clear and explicit declaration of policy goals. Unfortunately, all too often, when policy questions are posed there is no such explicitness or clarity. The honest researcher must therefore begin with a critical review of policy goals, focusing on what states of affairs are being held to be desirable and claiming 'necessity' for any policy, institution or structure only relative to the stated goals. What I am going to suggest in this essay is that a new goal has become widely accepted in British race relations, namely that of the multicultural society, but that the meaning of this term remains remarkably obscure. One of the first and central tasks of a Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations must be to clarify its meaning, because it is in relation to the meaning given to the concept that our various specific researches fall into place. Multiculturalism is a new goal for British race relations. It was not discussed much before 1968 and even today much research is directed by another and quite different value standpoint, namely that which emphasizes equality of individual opportunity. In theory, if not in practice, this other ideal is shared across a wide political spectrum and is certainly the basis of much discourse in the social service departments about social policy. Much ethnic relations research in Britain has concentrated very largely on the study of inequality and racial discrimination in the spheres of housing, employment, education and urban planning. Most of this work has served to confirm in special institutional contexts the conclusion reached in successive analyses of national samples carried out by the Policy Studies Institute: that in all these spheres immigrant minorities from Asia, Africa and the West Indies have suffered disadvantage due to racial discrimination (Daniel 1968; D. Smith 1977). There is, of course, a need to continue such studies and to locate and publicize the origins of and responsibility for discrimination. But more and more of the problems posed to us are not about equality and how it can be promoted, but about the multicultural society, which prima facie at least, must mean a society in which people are not equally but differently treated. If in fact we pretend that multiculturalism and equality are the same goal under different names we are creating precisely that kind of fuzziness which Myrdalian principles would The concept of a multicultural society 207 The issues which arise here originally crystallized forme when I participated in the UNESCO experts meeting on the nature of racism and race prejudice in ]967 (Montague 1972). The main theme of the statement which we drew up was about racial discrimination and inequality and how they could be overcome. So me black Americans on the committee then argued that the statement should beoin with an affirmation of 'the right to be different'. We eventually decided to exclude such a reference because, as one member of the Steering Committee put it, 'every racially oppressive and segregationist government would seize on the statement as a justification of inequality'. It was surprising perhaps that the desire to include a reference to difference came from black Americans. After all, the whole history of the civil rights movement had turned upon a rejection of the Plessey versus Ferguson decision of 1896 that facilities which were separate and segregated could nonetheless be equal. What was evident now, however, was that black politics included another theme. Assimilation was rejected as a sign of equality. The goal of the black movement was to attain equality of respect for a separate black culture. In Britain today there are many egalitarians who take a similar view. They believe that anti-racism and the goal of equality requires that all minority cultures should enjoy equal respect. The unfortunate thing, however, is that because of the fuzziness of the ideal of multiculturalism, they gain apparent support from those who aim to ensure that minorities should receive something different and inferior, the very reverse of equality. This is particularly trne in the sphere of education. PLURAL AND MULTICULTURAL SOCIETIES One good way of clarifying these issues is to look at the theories which sociologists and anthropologists havedeveloped in smdyingplural multicultural and multiracial societies. It can be seen from these studies that [the definition of an ideal varies widely], and it must therefore be in some very special sense that we speak of such an ideal in contemporary conditions. Most sociological theory had dealt with unitary societies or with conflict within society. Furnivall broke new ground, however, with his study of the plural society in Indonesia (Furnivall 1939). There he found different ethnic groups living side by side but interacting with each other only in the market place. The result of this was that, while the separate ethnic communities were governed by the morality and the religion and the kinship order, the market place was subject to no kind of moral control. While European capitalism had grown slowly out of the past and was constrained by some kind of common wil I, capitalism in Indonesia involved a marketplace in which one group simply oppressed or resisted another. The plural society was plural in two senses. One WaS m n t P:1 ľľl prfintí" r*nn"imiinit-ir civí er a A ronn^fnlif „.-.J U«J ..-----------------------------------> 208 John Rex morality. The other was that the private and communal world was separated from that of the market place. The question which this raises for us is whether a multicultural society will encourage tight-knit communal morality within groups or a world of total exploitation between groups. M. G. Smith argues along similar lines (M. G. Smith 1965 and 1974). As he sees it, unitary social systems have a single and complete set of institutions covering the spheres of domestic life, religion, law, politics, economics, education and so on, whereas plural societies in the British West Indies characteristically have no such overall institutional set but a number of ethnic segments each of which has its own nearly complete institutional set. These segments would in fact be separate societies were they not bound together by the political institution, i.e. the State. In other words, such societies are held together only because one group dominates the others. The various groups are differentially incorporated, if not de jure, at least de facto. Here againit would seem the plural society model is a model of racial domination. If we are to maintain the model of the multicultural society it must clearly be distinguished from that suggested by Furnivall and Smith. This can best be done by drawing a distinction between the public and the private domain. There appear then to be four possibilities: 1 One might envisage a society which is unitary in the.public domain but which encourages diversity in what are thought of as private or communal matters. 2 A society might be unitary in the public domain and also enforce or at least encourage unity of cultural practice in private or communal matters. 3 A society might allow diversity and differential rights for groups in the public domain and also encourage or insist upon diversity of cultural practice by different groups. 4 A society might have diversity and differential rights in the public domain even though there is considerable unity of cultural practice between groups. The ideal of multiculturalism, in which multiculturalism is held to be compatible with equality of opportunity is represented by the first possibility. The second might be represented by the French ideal of assimilation of minority groups. The third is common under all forms of colonialism and was represented above all by the South African apartheid system, while the fourth is the state of affairs which existed in the Deep South of the United States before the civil rights programme took effect. The crucial point about our multicultural ideal is that it should not be confused with (3). All too often it is, and those who support that possibility are likely to accept the slogan of multiculturalism and bend it in that direction. Let us now be more precise about what we mean by the public and private The concept of a multicultural society 209 The notion of the two domains seems at first to be at odds with mainstream sociological theory, as most sociologists see all institutions as being intercon-nccted with one another in a single system. This seems to me to be equally true af the functionalist paradigm as developed by Malinowski (1962) and Radcliffe Brown (1952), of the structural functionalism of Talcott Parsons (Parsons ] 952; Parsons, Shils and Bales 1953) and the structuralism of French Marxism (Althusser 1969). In all of these the private domain is not an optional extra but plays a part in socializing individuals for participation in the public sphere. On the other hand the public domain is seen as shaped by the morality which is inculcated in the family and through religious institutions. The actual history of European social institutions, however, belies functionalist theory. The polity, the economy and the legal system have been liberated from control by traditional values and have been based upon new values of an abstract kind. Yet it has seemed possible to permit the continuance of folk values and folk religions as long as these do not interfere with the functioning of the main political, economic and legal institutions of society. A great deal of classical sociological theory deals principally with the evolution of the new abstract value systems which a large-scale society requires. Ferdinand Tönnies ([1887] 1963) saw that folk community must give way historically to association and society, the first being based upon the natural or real will, the second upon the deliberate artificial and rational will. Durkheim wrote about 'organic solidarity' based upon the division of labour, which would replace the 'mechanical solidarity' of small-scale community based upon kinship ([18..] 1933), and, even more radically of an 'egoistic society'([1897] 1952) in which values were located in the minds of separate i nd ividuals. Finally Weber saw in Calvinist religion and the Protestant ethic the end-point of an increasingly rationalistic trend in religion and, together with that, the development of political leadership based upon rational legal authority (Weber [1965] 1930). Moral and legal systems of an abstract character thus were seen by all these authors as governing the social evolution of the modern state and of a formally rational capitalist economy. This is how what Parsons calls the Hobbesian problem of order (i.e. of how to avoid a war of all against all) was solved. This too is the significance of Furnivall's observation that the common will which characterized European capitalism was absent in Indonesia. It is under colonialism that we find what Marx called 'the callous cash nexus'. Economic and political institutions in Europe were embodied in what one might call 'the civic cuhure'. The development of this 'civic culture' (e.g. the abstract public morality, law and religion) by no means implied the disappearance of folk morality, folk cuhure and folk religion. These now came to fulfil new functions. On the one hand they bound men together into separate communities into which individuals were socialized and within which they achieved their social identities. On the other thev nrovided for what Parsons called 'narrern maínrpnanrp and 210 John Rex tension management'. Living in a larger world with abstract moral princip]es was, so Parsons believed, psychologically possible only if individuals could retreat somewhere conducive to intimate relations and letting their hair down. The ideal of the multicultural society which I have outlined above really presupposes the evolution of the modern type of society, of which Weber and Durkheim especially wrote. In simple societies morality and kinship structures had to govern the whole range of human activity. In an abstract and impersonal society a new more abstract form of law and morality had to be developed to govern large-scale political and economic organizations, while the old folk culture and morality helped the individual to retain some sort of psychological stability throughmoreimmediatesocialinterdependence.Thus multiculturalism in the modern world involves on the one hand the acceptance of a single culture and a single set of individual rights governing the public domain and a variety of folk cultures in the private domestic and communal domains. How does the above discussion relate to Marxist sociology and political thought? I think that the latter contains a certain duality. On the one hand the liberation of the market from traditional restraints represents for Marx the creation of precisely that type of society without a common will to which Furnivall refers. On the other Marx may be seen as envisaging the emergence through class struggle of a new rational socialist economic order. To the extent that he does one may see Marx too as envisaging the possibility of a new civic culture. THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN We must now consider more closely the institution of the public and theprivate domain and in each case look more closely at the ways in which they are likely to intrude on one another. As we shall see education intrudes into both spheres and the communal ideologies which bind people together in the private sphere may have implications for their integration or non-integration into public life. The main institutions which constitute the public domain are those of law, politics and the economy. Law determines the rights of any individual and the way in which he or she is incorporated into society. The very mark of the plural society is that different groups and categories of people are differentially incorporated. In our ideal multicultural society, however, we are positing that all individuals are equally incorporated and that they have equality before the law. The ideals of the multicultural society and of its civic culture are not realized insofar as any individual or category of individuals is harassed or under-protected by the police or are denied access to the protection of the courts. Tn rfip unViprp nf nnliriri; ap-nin. in flip, nlural sncietv different proUDS have The concept of a multicultural society 211 differing degrees of political power. In the ideal multicultural society each individual and group is deemed to have the same right to exercise political power through the vote or by other means. This by no means excludes the nodon of conflict but no individual or group should find the rules governing such conflict disadvantageous. Participation in such a political system is a part of the multicultural ideal. The economy refers in the first place to the institution of the market. This involves the processes of bargaining and competition and the sole sanction which an individual may use against the other is the threat to go to another supplier. The market should exclude the use of force and fraud. But while it is a rule-governed institution it excludes by definition the concept of 'charity', a concept which belongs to the world of community and folk morality. What is involved in market behaviour is the more abstract morality of sticking to the rules of peaceful market bargaining. The maintenance of such a system is another and quite central part of the civic culture and the multicultural ideal. This is not to say that a market economy cannot be replaced by another type or allocation system or what is sometimes called the command economy. Here certain abstract goals are made explicit and organizations are set up to advance them. But the best that such a system can achieve is formal justice. Here as in the market economy there is no principle of charity, which is again assigned to the folk community. To say that these are the macro-institutions which are required in the civic culture of a multicultural society is not to say that such a society will always be totally harmonious and peaceful. The pursuit of directly political goals involves conflict and markets too break down and give way to collective bargaining and political conflict. All that I wish to claim is that it is to be assumed in a multicultural society that no individual has more or less rights than another or a greater or lesser capacity to operate in this world of conflict because of his or her ethnic category. Any suggestion that individuals or groups should receive differential treatment in the public domain is a move away from the multicultural ideal towards the plural society of colonialism. It would mean that groups were differentially incorporated de facto if not de jure. And this is true even in an atmosphere of paternalism. This would be the case, for example, if, while other groups had their needs provided by separate functional departments, all the needs of the minority were provided by a single Department of Minority affairs. It may perhaps be suggested here that the efflorescence of race relations programmes at local level reflects not a genuine multiculturalism but this trend towards different and separate provision. It is moreover a process which it is very difficult to stop once it is in train because a considerable number of individuals from minority groups may be rewarded for staffing it. 212 John Rex THE BOUNDARIES OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN So far I have discussed the institutions of law, politics and the economy as institutions of the public domain, and I have suggested that matters relating to the family, to morality and religion belong in the private sphere. It is now necessary to note, however, that the public domain is often extended through bureaucratic state activity in matters of the family and morality, particularly in the welfare state. Two kinds of barrier are breached in the modern state: the state may intervene in the economic sphere through ownership, through control and through subsidies to ensure efficient production; but it also intervenes in what are essentially family and community matters. It directs the economy towards full employment so that all bread-winners may have jobs. It permits as well as directs trade union activity to ensure job security. It makes provision through social insurance to ensure that individuals without employment have an income. It may build homes for letting or subsidize the building of houses for private ownership. It may provide education for children and for adults and it may provide social work services to help in resolving personal and family problems. Ail of these activities involve breaches in the barrier between public and private domains. When the state provides, moreover, its provision is universally oriented. It cannot easily make its provision multicultural; if it does, it may provide unequally and unfairly for different groups. T. Marshall (1950) has suggested that it is the mark of the modern state that it provides, in addition to legal and political rights, a substantial body of social rights and that this has led workers to feel a greater sense of loyalty to the state and nation than they do to class. In terms of my argument, however, there is an even more fundamental point: much of the feeling of identification which individuals once had with the private domain and the local community is transferred to the state. Undoubtedly functions have been lost by the family and community to the state, although there is an argument that state intervention actually supports the family and enables it to perform its primary tasks of consumption and primary socialization more effectively (Fletcher 1966). What seems to be the case is that there is inevitably a degree of state socialist provision for family welfare in the modern world and that this is an area of collaboration between public and private domains. When the state intervenes in education, however, more difficult problems arise. The concept of a multicultural society 213 EDUCATION AND THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE pOMAINS A modern educational system has three clear functions. It selects individuals on die basis of their achievement for training for various occupational roles. It transmits important skills necessary for survival and for work in industry. And It also transmits moral values. It is this third function which brings it into conflict with the private domain, for clearly one part of the socialization process consists precisely in the transmission of moral values. Clearly no ethnic minority will object to the selection mechanism beingpart of the public domain. What is important is simply that this mechanism should give equal opportunity to all. Again, if the minority is committed to living by employment in the industrial system, it will itself wish to take advantage of any skill training which is available. Moral training, however, involves other issues. Insofar as such training at school level is concerned simply with the transmission of what we might call civic morality and culture, the problems arising will be small. True, there will be doubts about the desirability of encouraging competitive and individualist values, because, taken out of context, these conflict with the principles of charity and mutual aid underlying local communities and the private domain. But this is an inherent tension in industrial society and one with which industrial man has learned to live. Moreover there are parts of civic morality which are of value and importance to minorities, especially ín relation to the notion of equality of opportunity. Much more important than any objection to this aspect of the school's moral role is the objection to its interference in matters considered to be private or to involve individual choice. This is true of all matters relating to sex, marriage, the family and religion. It is arguable that schools ought not to intervene in these matters at all or to do so only on the most general and basic level. Such an argument hinges on showing that these practices do not prevent the proper functioning of the state and may positively assist it. The counter-argument is that it is of concern to the state how family matters are arranged, both because the state is concerned with the law of inheritance, and because it has to uphold individual rights even against the family. On family matters, however, there are considerable tensions between minority communities and the school in contemporary Britain. Among Asians, for example, there is a great emphasis upon arranged marriage and the relative exclusion and modesty of females. Neither the official curriculum of British schools nor the peer group culture in which minority children inevitably participate fosters the relevant values. Sometimes schools may be unnecessarily provocative, for example when girls are required to take part in mixed swimming classes, but more generally the whole ethos of the school, based as it is on the encouragement of individual choice and free competition, strikes at the root of any tight-knit marriage and familv svstem. 214 John Rex There is often a fundamental clash of values on these matters in any modern society. The notion of equality of opportunity appears to point to the rights nor merely of families but to thqse of individuals, male and female, against the constraints imposed by families. Feminism has made the issues here especially sharp. It is unacceptable in terms of feminist values that a woman should be forced into a marriage or that girls should be denied the maximum degree of education because of some preconceived notion of the female role. Such emphases in the argument are, however, quite misleading from the point of view of Asian parents. They fail to acknowledge the fact that an arranged marriage reflects the care which the family shows towards its daughters: the guaranteed dowry is likely to be far more substantial than anything a European girl might get from her parents to initiate married life. Indeed it can be said that the whole system gives the bride more rights than does the notion of marriage based upon random selection and romantic love. Furthermore, the assertion of freedom in the sexual sphere is bound up with a whole set of values about the marketability of sex as reflected in the media and in sex shops. The feminist demand for greater freedom is therefore seen as part of this larger package which offends against all Asian concepts of modesty and love. - This clash of values cannot be examined here. It is simply important to note that it exists and that in a society which seeks to achieve both equality ol opportunity and the toleration of cultural diversity, institutional arrangements will evolve to deal with this tension. Parents may seek to limit the role of equality of opportunity offered at certain schools by withdrawing their children from certain kinds of activity; they may also seek to provide supplementary moral education outside the school. Another potential source of discord is religion. Here, however, the way has been prepared in a Christian society for dealing with potential conflicts. Because the various Christian sects and denominations have engaged in conflicts, even in international and civil wars, which have threatened the unity of the state, most nominally Christian societies have already downgraded religion to a matter of minor importance towards which there was no danger in exercising toleration. Once Roman Catholics had been given the right to teach their own religion in schools, there was no barrier in principle to allowing Islam or Sikhism or Hinduism to be taught in asimilar way. Difficulties seemed to arise only with quasi-religious movements, for example Rastafarianism, because of their strong political associations. Wider than the religious question was that of instruction in minority cultures, thought by many to be the key issue in any programme of multicultural education. Such innovations, however, are often far from popular with minority communities, who see them as diverting energies from subjects more important to examination success, and, in any case as caricatures of their culture. The strong preference of minority people is that, unless such teaching can be carried out by minority teachers in schools, it is best done outside school _____i____i— tli^t -wliilp minnritv children learn The concept of a multicultural society 215 nboUt majority culture, provision should also be made for majority children to learn about minority culture, since this will foster equality by encouraging equal respect for other cultures. The question of language creates greater dilemmas. Teaching in mother tongues and teaching o/mother tongues have both been seen to be important in a wide variety of minority communities. Teaching in mother tongue is important at the outset for those who do not speak the main school language. If children are simply confronted by another language on entering school, their education is likely to be seriously retarded. What is required therefore is initial teaching in the mother tongue with the main language of the school gradually introduced until it replaces the mother tongue as a medium of instruction. Paradoxically, the importance of using mother tongue as an initial medium of instruction is that it can facilitate assimilation. Much more important, however, is the fact that it promotes equality of opportunity. The teaching o/mother tongue is of separate importance. Systematic provision for such teaching is beyond the means of most minority communities, and, if it were literally left to mother, the mother tongue would simply become a restricted ghetto language. What minority people want is to have financial support so that it can be used to enlarge the cultural experiences of the group. In the kind of society under consideration here it cannot ever attain anything like equality with the main language in some sort of bilingual state. But there is no reason why minority people should not be able to express themselves and communicate with each other about their experiences in their own language. What I am suggesting here is that, once the inherent tensions of the educational system are recognized, it is possible to envisage a balance of control because education belongs to both the public and private domains. The school should be concerned as the agent of the public domain with selection, with the transmission of skills and with civic morality. The community should control education in all matters concerning language, religion and family affairs, for which the state should provide financial support in a multicultural society. The other alternative is to take education out of the public domain and make it an intra-communal matter. This is what has been done in England in the case of Roman Catholic schools and, in principle, no new ground is opened up if, say, Muslim or Hindu schools receive similar recognition. Obviously there would be a danger in such schools that the task fulfilled by the mainstream schools would be subordinated to the inculcation of communal values, but it is also possible that a balance could be struck here in which the controllers of minority schools themselves recognized the instrumental value of education in a modern society along with education in its own culture. If this were recognized it might be more possible to achieve the right balance in a school controlled by the minority than in normal majority schools which find themselves in tension with minority cultures. 216 John Rex THE PROBLEM OF ETHNIC SOCIAL WORK Clearly education is a sphere in which the distinction between that which is necessary from the point of view of maintaining the culture of minorities and that which is necessary from the point of view of a large-scale society is difficult to draw. Another even more difficult area is that which arises in connection with social welfare and social work. Social workers have sometimes claimed that what is necessary in dealing with minorities is a special kind of multicultural social work. If, however, the problems of minority people are so different would it not be possible for the community to be subsidized so that it could take care of its own? Alternatively, is the problem not that of combining professional standards with sensitivity to community values? In that case would not the answer be to train social workers from the minority communities so that they could add professionalism to their existing sensitivity? The problem of trying to train majority social workers in sensitivity is much more difficult than that of training already sensitive minority people in professional standards. THE STRUCTURES OF THE PRIVATE DOMAIN The nature of the sociological problem with which we have to deal is this. For a member of the majority as a society, the world of the family and the primary community is an integrated structural part of the whole network of social relations which constitutes his or her society. It is also a functional subsystem of the whole and its culture is continuous with that of the main society. Among ethnic minorities the situation is wholly different. For such minorities the family and community are part of another social system and another culture. Quite possibly in that society the extended kinship group carried much more weight than it does in industrial society and in some cases provided the whole of the social structure. The most important function of the immigrant minority kinship group is, of course, primary socialization. In the case of the majority this function is performed by the family, which exists in relative isolation from any larger community or network. In the case of the minority communities, however, the family is part of a wider network of communal and associational ties, the socializing community is larger and more people are involved in the child's socialization. The extended family is not solely a socializing agency but also provides a unit for economic mobilization; this function may even be performed when members are separated from one another by migration. The family and kin group has an estate to which members may be expected to rnnt-riVniťp pirhpr in terms of nrnnertv or in terms of skills and Qualifications. The concept of a multicultural society 217 ^ji event like marriage is not, therefore, and cannot be solely a matter of individual choice. It involves the transfer of capital from one group to another and, as a result, the linking of two groups. At the same time the new family constituted by marriage starts with a carefully husbanded inheritance of material and social capital. Because extended kinship is seriously damaged by the fact of migration, the networks within which family life occurs come to depend more on artificial structures which are thought of as associations, but which are actually structures through which the wider community life is expressed. In my study of Sparkbrook (Rex 1973) I suggested that these associations had four functions. They helped individuals to overcome social isolation; they did pastoral work among their members and helped them to deal with moral and social problems; they served as a land of trade union defending the interests of the group; and it was through them that values and beliefs were affirmed and religious and political ideologies perpetuated. Of particular importance is the role of the association in the affirmation of values and beliefs. Included in this is that individuals can be offered beliefs about themselves, that is to say identity options or ideas about who he or she is. Naturally it is not the case that individuals automatically accept these options, but the associations are flexible instruments through which new identities appropriate to the new situation are suggested as possible. Values and beliefs, however, cohere around the more systematic teachings of minority religions. Such religions have belief systems which go far beyond the present situation in explaining mankind's relation to nature and to our fellows. As such they can never be simply functional in a modern society. Nevertheless, whatever their particular content, these religions provide a metaphysical underpinning for beliefs of all kinds and therefore help to provide the psychological security which the whole community structure gives. To a very large extent the kinship structures, the associations and the religions of the minorities may be seen as acting together to perform a function for the larger society. It is the function of what Parsons calls 'pattern maintenance and tension management' (Parsons 1952). We may say that they provide individuals with a concept of who they are as they embark on action in the outside world and also give them moral and material support in coping with that world. To the extent that they perform these functions, communal structures and belief systems become a functioning part of the larger society, whatever the particular form of the social structure and whatever the content of its culture. Minority communities and minority cultures do not threaten the unity of society. Nor do they imply inequality between groups. They can have tlieir place within a society which is committed in its main structures to equality of opportunity. What I have tried to suggest is that a multicultural society must find a place for both diversity and equality of opportunity. Emphasis upon the first Without allowing fnr the «jprnnrl rnnlrl lend tn Rpo-rpo-arinnicm inpmislil-ir 218 John Rex and differential incorporation. Emphasis upon the second at the expense or the first could lead to an authoritarian form of assimilationism. Both of these are at odds with the ideal of the multicultural society. CONFLICT AND COMPROMISE IN THE MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY Finally, to qualify what 1 have said about the functionality of minority structures, I believe that we would do an injustice to the religious, cultural and pohtical ideas of minority groups if we saw them as fitting easily and snugly into the social status quo. Sometimes their ideas and their institutions may bi revolutionary or secessionist. Sometimes they are not addressed to the prob lems of the society of settlement at all, but to those of the original homeland Should this mean that they are dangerous and should be repressed? I think not. After all, British culture is by no means unitary. It can be and think should be interpreted in terms of class struggle. The working classe: nationally and regionally have developed definite forms of organization anc revolutionary notions of social solidarity which challenges the social order anc the culture of the ruling classes. The result of all this, however, is that what have called civic culture includes the notion of conflict. The social order wfucl we have is the resultant of social conflict. I see no reason why there should no be a similar process as that between majority and minority groups. Ours is í society which has produced institutions to deal with the injustices of capital' ism. Surely it is not impossible to envisage a similar outcome to the strugglf initiated by Rastafarianism which seeks to set right the injustices of thepast40C years. The only belief system which must be outlawed in the multicultura society is that which seeks to impose inequality of opportunity on individual! or groups. That is why the multicultural society must be an anti-racist society SUMMARY: THE ESSENTIALS OF A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY 1 The multicultural ideal is to be distinguished from the notion of a plura society. 2 In a multicultural society we should distinguish between the publi domain in which there is a single culture based upon the notion of equality between individuals and the private domain, which permits diversity be tween groups. 3 The public domain includes the world of law, politics and economics. 1 -rit-« mi-lurloc i*A 11 m rtnn incnfar a K fVi í «5 is mnCPmed With Selection, til1 The concept of a multicultural society 219 transmission of skills and the perpetuation of civic culture. 4 Moral education, primary socialization and the inculcation of religious belief belong to the private domain. 5 The structure of the private domain among immigrant minority communities includes kinship that extends back into a homeland, a network of associations and a system of religious organization and belief. This structure provides a valuable means in an impersonal society of providing a home and a source of identity for individuals. 6 Nonetheless minority communities at any one time may conflict with and challenge the existing order as have communities based upon social class in the past. The new social order of the multicultural society is an emergent one which will result from the dialogue and the conflict between ultures. society of this kind likely to come into being in Britain? I think not. The cepl of a multicultural society which is now in vogue is too confused for . It might lead much more readily to 'differential incorporation'. Moreover ■e are still many to whom the very idea of multiculturalism is anathema and i would oppose the emphasis upon diversity which I have advocated. But jver was the task of a sociologist to provide happy endings. All I can do is larify my value standpoint and indicate what institutional arrangements are jssary for its realization. REFERENCES \l ! usser, L. (1969) For Marx, Allen Lane: London. Ií. ľI, W. (1968) Racial Discrimination in Britain, Penguin: Harmondsworth. V: • dicim, E. (1933) The Division of Labor in Society, Free Press: Glencoe, Illinois. ■*■ theim, E. ([1897] 1952) Suicide, Routledge and Kegan Paul: London. !-■ hur, R. (1966) The Family and Marriage in Britain, Penguin: Harmondsworth. ivall, J. S. (1939) Netherlands India, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. .'■! ' nowslti, B. (1962) A Scientific Theory of Culture, University of North Carolina '■ess: Chapel Hill. V -thiilI, T. (1950) Citizenship and Social Class, Cambridge University Press: Cam- idgc. M1 ta^ue, A. (1972) Statements on Race, Oxford University Press: London. M; dal, G. (1944) The American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democ- cy, Harper and Row: New York. ■'■ jití, T. (1952) The Social System, Tavistock: London. -1" ons, T., Shils, E. and Bales, R. (1953) Working Papers in the Theory of Actions, Free i1 ess: New York. ■■"* ;Iiffe-Brown, A. (1952) Structure and Function in Primitive Society, Cohen and >'■ est: London. ",,-1.J. {1^73) Race, Colonialism and the City, Routledge and Kegan Paul: London. ■" ■ h, D. (1977) Racial Disadvantage in Britain, Penguin: Harmondsworth. -l- h, M. G. (1965) The Plural Society in the British West Indies, University of ĹeďKuper Smith, M. G. (1974) Corporations and Society, Duckworth: London. Tönnies, F. ([1887] 1963) Community and Association, translated by C. P. Loomis, Routledge and Kegan Paul: London. Weber, M. ([1905] 1930) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Allen and Unwin: London. Weber, M. ([1922] 1968) Economy and Society, Vol. 1, Bedminster Press: New York. Plural societies I I O M ľ L li [...] There are two quite antithetical traditions in regard to the nature of societies characterized by pluralism. The first tradition, which I am following, is relatively recent. It is expressed in the theory of the plural society. In this tradition, die stability of plural societies is seen as precarious and threatened by sharp cleavages between different plural sections, whose relations to each other are generally characterized by inequality. The second tradition is much older, and offers a conception (or ideal type) of the pluralistic society, in which the pluralism of the varied constituent groups and interests is integrated in a balanced adjustment, which provides conditions favourable to stable democratic government. The second tradition is well established in the United States, and I refer below to some contemporary examples of this tradition. The adoption of, or affinity for, one tradition or the other is no doubt shaped by different experiences of social life, in the colonies or in the United States, but it seems also to derive from the opposition between two basic social philosophies expressed in the antithesis between equilibrium models of society (particularly consensual) and conflict models of society. The difficulties that arise in the attempted synthesis of these models also affect attempts to relate the different conceptions of the plural society and the pluralistic society in a broader framework. 'EQUILIBRIUM' MODEL OF PLURALISM The 'equilibrium' model tends to associate democracy with pluralism (Kornhauser 1960; Shils 1956; Aron 1950). Shils indeed emphasizes his view that pluralism is consistent with diverse political positions - conservatism and liberalism, laissez-faire and socialism, traditionalism and rationalism, hierar-i —i —!:..-_:__:— n..* U„ J,-,™- .-.-.t- m^i-d fliocB rliffprpncpc in nnlitical Plural societies position as crucial; he argues instead that the really crucial dividing line in politics lies between pluralistic moderation and monomaniac extremism (Shils 1956); and much of his discussion of pluralistic society concerns Uberal democracy, which presumably exemplifies for him the ideal realization of the principles of pluralism. Kornhauser also finds in pluralism a basis for liberal democracy. He writes that a pluralist society supports liberal democracy; that liberty and democracy tend to be strong where social pluralism is strong; and that where the introduction of democracy is not based on a pluralist society, democracy may readily lose out to new forms of autocracy (Kornhauser 1960). The political structure of the society, in the 'equilibrium' model, is itself plural. A system of constitutional checks and balances is designed to effect a separation of powers among the legislature, the executive, the administrative sector, and the judiciary, and in this way to ensure pluralism in the structure of authority. The struggle for power by political parties and leaders is seen as the plural political counterpart of the social pluralism of competing interest groups, and as the basis for democratic rule (in the sense of popular choice among competing candidates). If analysis of political process is directed to the role of elites, then political pluralism is represented by a divided elite. As the preceding references indicate, the social basis for political pluralism is to be found in social pluralism. This may be conceived as a balance, and a relative autonomy, between institutional spheres. Shils, in his discussion of the pluralistic society, describes this aspect: Every society is constructed of a set of spheres and systems: the domestic and kinship system, the political system, the economic system, the religious sphere, the cultural sphere, and the like. Different types of societies are characterized by the preponderance of one of the systems or spheres over the others. .. . The system of individualistic democracy or liberalism is characterized by an approximate balance among the spheres. Liberalism is a system of pluralism (Shils 1956: 153-1). In addition to the separation of spheres, Kornhauser emphasizes the presence of a strong structure of stable and independent groups, intermediate between the individual and the state. This provides the basis for a system of social checks and balances, a dispersion of power contributing to the maintenance of political pluralism. Integration is seen as effected in part by a system of crosscutting loyalties or multiple affiliations. Thus Kornhauser argues that a multiplicity of associations is not in itself a sufficient basis for the pluralist society. The different associations, such as ethnic associations, may be highly inclusive, encompassing many aspects of their members' lives, and thus encouraging social cleavage, divisive loyalties, and submission to authoritarian control. Hence Kornhauser insists on multiple affiliation as a further condition of pluralism. This extends the concept of pluralism to the level of individual pluralism, in the sense of individual DarticiDation in a varietv of nlural structures. The nhiralisr disner-